


breathing

by transzoemurphy



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: ADHD Character, Anxiety, Based off real events, But yk, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, HoH Jared, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Self Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mutual Pining, Panic Attack, Suicide Jokes, anxiety attack, bare references, but minus all the happy stuff, chest pain, climbing through windows, dumb soda metaphors made by sleep deprived boys, evan is kin with veronica sawyer thanks have a nice day, evan is trilingual, idk i’ll tag it, if u haven’t listened to bare Please Do it’s so Good and Gay pls.., it’s implied that jared has Not Good Hearing, jared says UwU out loud, liberal references to bare, they’re stupid, w the captions thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 22:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17733497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transzoemurphy/pseuds/transzoemurphy
Summary: Jared has an anxiety attack with that Stereotypical Chest Pain™ & he doesn't know what to do, so he calls Evan





	breathing

**Author's Note:**

> tw mention of self harm  
> “nik whos the target audience of ur fics” MYSELF

It had been three days since Jared realised he couldn't breathe. 

At first, he'd thought it was his asthma or his allergies acting up. But he took medicine for both and it didn't help, and his heart was racing in his chest, slamming into his ribs so quickly he thought was going to die. And when he first thought it, it'd been an exaggeration, but after a good hour on Google he was fairly certain he had either walking pneumonia, COPD, angina, or a heart attack.   
His eyes were beginning to blur. God, for a guy whose posts on r/2meirl4meirl and r/madeofstyrofoam got a ton of upvotes, dying wasn't all it was cut out to be.   
In fact, it was really fucking painful.   
If he was going to die he might as well text Evan. It wouldn’t hurt, he decided.

jard klartmeme: hey evan i think im goibg to die soon so i jsut wanted to say goodbye  
evan: woah wait :0 back up !!  
evan: why do u think ur gonna die?!  
jart klartmeme: webmd said i was going to die  
evan: whag are the symptoms ur feelig??  
jart klartmeme: whwn i try tot ake in a deep breath i feel like someone tied my ribcage bones together like a fuxking shoelace right around my heart  
evan: those r called ribs jared  
evan: "ribcage bones"  
evan: theyre Ribs  
evan: are u wheezing at all?  
jart klartmeme: nope  
evan: i could b wrong but im like. 90% certajn ur having some panic induced chest pains™  
evan: which ive been there and it SUCKS  
evan: wnat me to climb thru ykur window?  
jart klartmeme: i have lots of questions about what u just said  
jart klartmeme: i mean yeah go ahead but how ru gonna get up there, how will u explaim why ur here, whY DO U KNOW HOW TO CLIMB THRU WINDOWS,  
evan: when. i was in 8th grade. i realised i was kin with veronica sawyer  
evan: so i taught myself to climb through windows  
evan: to validate my kin or w/e  
evan: we'll figure that out later! im bringing my stuff in case i end up staying the rest of the night so will u put it on yr bed  
jart klartmeme: yeah sure ??? im still mcLosing it over the fact that youre   
jart klartmeme: climbing thruogh my window at 2:07am  
evan: yeah well. thats How It Be sometimes  
evan: ok im down under ur window. can u open it so i can yeet my bag in ??  
jart klartmeme: i sEE U SKSJSJS  
jart klartmeme: and ya  
evan: thanks uwu

Jared unlatched the window and pushed it up as quietly as he could, endlessly amused by the way Evan scaled trees like it was easy.   
"Hey," Evan greeted, and the intimacy of the whole situation left Jared even more breathless than he had been.   
"Hey," he responded.   
Evan shrugged his backpack onto one shoulder, the hand gripping the tree turning pale, and Jared reached out and took it from him, using his body weight to throw it and himself onto his bed.   
He moved over to the side so Evan could throw himself through the window. His landing on the bed was much more graceful than Jared’s, but he still fell onto the other boy, which caused an awkward moment where Evan mumbled "sorry," slid over a bit, and began picking leaves out of his hair.   
This whole scenario was fucking surreal.   
"So," Evan said. "Does breathing itself hurt? Or is it more like something in your chest is hurting when you breathe?"  
"It's like something in my chest is hurting. Like right here." He made a fist over the center of his chest, just under his sternum.   
"Can I... take your pulse?" Evan held up two fingers.   
Jared nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.   
Evan focused his eyes on the clock behind Jared's bed (when he was 13, Jared had hyperfixated on clocks. He had seven of them in his room now, and he knew each analog clock by its ticks). He raised his fingers to Jared's neck and kept his eyes trained on the clock for thirty seconds as Jared's blush got darker and darker.   
"112," Evan said.   
"That's bad?"  
"Yes," Evan said, "but, a high heart rate means that it's most likely a panic attack."  
Jared nodded. "Okay. So I'm not dying?"  
"Nope!"  
"Aww..."  
Evan snorted, but then turned serious. "You're not legally allowed to. If you died I'd go to your grave and bury you with a straight pride flag."  
"No!"  
"Yes!"  
Jared put his fingers up to his neck to feel his heart rate again. "How do I feel better?"  
"You've got to bring yourself all the way down from this, like, you've got to be completely calm."  
"I am calm!"  
"Your heart rate is 112, Jared."  
"Mmmngg— you got me there."  
"How long has this been going on?"  
"Since Friday."  
"It's Monday now, Jesus, okay. Um... there's, I know this is really unhelpful, but the only way to make it go away is relaxation and time. But! Exercise can also help."  
"You're out of your mind."  
"I once had anxiety chest pain that lasted three or four days and it went away after gym class. Because your body's going, 'there's danger, run!' And then you're not running. So it's all building up and it starts to hurt, y'know?"   
"...No."  
"Okay. Think of it like... something made you anxious, right? So that was like shaking a bottle of coke. And then something else made you anxious, that's shaking it again. So it keeps being shaken up until it literally can't hold any more soda and the whole thing explodes. And then you're trying to mop it up with Mentos."  
"So what should I be mopping it up with?"  
Evan stared at him. "...A mop?"  
"...In retrospect... I can... I can see that."  
Evan snickered. "What things would make you feel less anxious?"  
"Just fucking dying already?"  
"Anything else?"  
Carving up my own skin probably isn't a good answer. "Uh," talking to you? "Watching bare: A Pop Opera and crying?"  
"Ah, oh worm? Do you… wanna watch bare? I downloaded it. And there's subtitles."  
"Oh, hell yeah," Jared said.   
Evan pulled out his phone as Jared took his earbuds out of his pocket and handed the left one to Evan. The two boys got as comfortable as they could when they were seventeen sharing a twin-size bed and Evan hit play, the two of them letting out identical gasps as the musical started.   
"Sorry if I — I probably won't, but sorry if I fall asleep," Jared said.   
"It's fine if you do. You need beauty sleep or whatever."  
"I could be in a coma for months and barely get to the point of looking like a human being, but okay."  
"Shut up. It's 2019. We're loving ourselves this year."  
Jared hushed him as the song got to the "ambiguous Christmas cards" line and laughed into his hand. "It be like that," he said, muffled.   
Evan snickered.   
The bootleg was about two hours long, and by the end of it a very exhausted Jared was crying into the shirt of an equally exhausted Evan. Jared's tears only worsened his breathing, which in turn just upset him more.   
"Hey, breathe," Evan advised.   
"I can't," Jared responded.   
"You can," Evan said. "When you're entirely calm again, you'll be able to. I promise."  
"But I—"   
Evan put a finger over Jared's mouth and shushed him. "Let's go to sleep."  
"It's" — Jared checked the time—"4:38am now."  
"So?"  
"...Weird flex, but I'm down to sleep, so."  
“Oh, worm?" Evan paused. “Fellas, is it gay to watch all of bare: A Pop Opera with your guy best friend and then ask to share a bed at 4:38AM?"  
"Maybe. But 'fellas' aren't here right now."  
Evan started to sing a line from Bare, "We have to wait until the world is fast asleep, I'll wipe away the doubt, show you why we keep the best kept secret... The best kept secret of all..."  
"All I want is right there in your eyes," Jared continued. "They tell me I'm alright and I realise I always knew," the two sung through the rest of the song before Evan whispered, "go to sleep, homo, or we won't get up in time."  
"Fine," Jared mumbled. He threw the blanket over himself and Evan. "Goodnight UwU."  
"Hated that," Evan said. He repeated it in Hebrew and ASL for effect.   
Jared snickered. "Go to sleep, you trilingual dork."  
"Shut up then," Evan quipped back.  
There was silence for a moment, before— "For real, thanks for coming over."  
"You're welcome. Will you please shut up now?"  
"That's bullying," Jared said. He shifted over and realised too late that his head was now on Evan's chest. Oh well. Guess that's happening now.   
“Good night, Jared,” Evan said, exasperated.  
Jared snickered again before calming down. “Night.” He leaned into Evan’s chest, because he wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to be gay, and closed his eyes, trying to get to sleep.  
His breathing evened out, although it was still shallow and every attempt at a deeper breath resulted in pain shooting through his chest. He let himself relax and was almost fully asleep before he heard Evan whisper a lyric from Bare, “Here in a world where there’s safety in falsehood, I have discovered the one thing that’s real.”  
Jared kept his breathing steady as his heart rate increased to twice its previous rate. Clearly, Evan thought he was asleep, but he wasn’t, and the next line — “That I love you and I loved you from the start” — he wanted so badly to tell Evan that.  
But he wouldn’t.  
But he should.  
But he wouldn’t.  
The indecision rocked him to sleep, and when a far-too-loud alarm woke Jared up at an ungodly time in the morning, he decided to go for it, because, in his own words, “Fuck it, why not?”   
“Ughhhh,” Evan said eloquently.  
Jared paused for a moment, because he was impulsive, but he wasn’t reckless.  
Yes, he was. “That I love you and I loved you from the start,” he finished the line.   
Evan blinked for a moment before, “I thought you were asleep!”  
“You thought wrong,” Jared said.  
“Is your breathing any better?”  
“…A little,” Jared admitted after thinking about it.  
“Can I…?” Evan held up two fingers and Jared nodded, tilting his head so Evan could take his heart rate.  
Thirty seconds later, Evan said, “It’s 128. That’s… not a good sign.”  
“There may be some,” Jared paused, “External factors contributing to that.”  
Evan nodded. “That’s fair.”  
The two of them stared at each other for a moment.  
“Maybe I’m misreading this situation, but I think we should make out or something now.”  
“No, you’re reading it right,” Jared assured.  
Evan tilted his chin up with the two fingers he’d used to check Jared’s pulse before leaning down and kissing him, his breath warm, his touch scorching, and Jared leaned into the kiss, and Evan leaved into the kiss, and then Evan leaned too far and fell on top of Jared.  
Evan propped himself up on his elbows quickly, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you over.”  
“It’s more than fine,” Jared responded.  
“You’re an idiot,” Evan smiled. He lowered himself back down and kissed Jared again, adjusting his position and cupping Jared’s cheek.  
Time froze, and for one peaceful moment, it was just the two of them and Jared’s Star Wars blanket and the buzzing of Jared’s now-silenced alarm.

**Author's Note:**

> ur boi back w the projection n the fluffy hurt/comfort first kiss fanfics. follow my tumblr @trans-zoe-murphy for More Of Me


End file.
